- By Nadine Yousif
- BBC News, Toronto
Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered on June 18 in Surrey, British Columbia, in what police described as a “targeted” attack.
A prominent Sikh leader was brazenly murdered this summer outside a temple in British Columbia (BC), Canada. The death outraged his supporters and intensified global tensions between Sikh separatists and the Indian government.
One evening in mid-June, in the busy parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in the city of Surrey, Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in his truck by two masked gunmen.
Months later, the unsolved murders continue to reverberate across Canada and beyond borders. Hundreds of Sikh separatists took to the streets of Toronto, along with a handful of others in cities including London, Melbourne and San Francisco, in early July to protest the Indian government, which they believe was responsible for his death.
Most recently, in September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of being behind Mr. Nijjar’s death, saying Canadian intelligence had identified “credible allegations” of a link between his death and agents of the Indian state.
The Indian government has denied any involvement in the killing.
The outrage that followed the 45-year-old’s killing highlighted a long-standing problem: Some groups are demanding a separate homeland for Sikhs, who are a religious minority that makes up about 2 percent of India’s population.
The movement peaked in the 1980s in the state of Punjab, which has witnessed several violent attacks and deaths. It lost steam after the armed forces carried out special operations against the movement – but supporters in the diaspora continued their calls for a separate state, which have intensified in recent years.
India strongly opposed the Khalistan movement. All major political parties, including in Punjab, have denounced the violence and separatism.
Mr. Nijjar was a prominent Sikh leader in British Columbia and a strong advocate for a separate state of Khalistan. His supporters said he had been the target of threats in the past because of his activism.
India has said he is a terrorist and leads a separatist militant group – accusations his supporters call “baseless”.
At the time of his death, Canadian investigators said they had not yet established a motive for his killing or identified any suspects, but they classified the killing as a “targeted incident.”
A murder investigation led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is ongoing.
Canada is home to the largest Sikh diaspora outside of the state of Punjab. On July 8, hundreds of people demonstrated against the death of Mr. Nijjar in Toronto, in front of the High Consulate of India building. They were met with a smaller counter-protest in support of the Indian government.
Both sides shouted at each other across the barricades for several hours, and a pro-Khalistan protester was arrested after trying to cross the fence.
Even before the weekend, concerns had been raised about the protest.
Some posters at the Toronto event included the words “Kill India” and referred to Indian diplomats in Canada as “killers”, leading the outraged Indian government to summon the Canadian envoy.
Image source, Getty Images
The pro-Khalistan demonstration in Toronto was met with a counter-protest in support of India. Both sides shouted at each other through the barricades
Balpreet Singh, a spokesperson for the World Sikh Organization of Canada, said he believes the Khalistan movement has been somewhat dormant and largely peaceful in recent decades, although it has enjoyed a renaissance, particularly from young people who did not experience the violence of the 1980ss.
But even with this revival, there is a sense that people in Punjab have largely “abandoned” the idea of a separate state for Sikhs, said Gurpreet Singh, a British Columbia-based journalist and radio host who interviewed Mr. Nijjar in the past. .
“What we see in Canada is a vocal minority of the Sikh community supporting Khalistan,” he said.
Mr. Nijjar is the third Sikh personality to die suddenly in recent months.
In the UK, Avtar Singh Khanda, believed to be the leader of the Khalistan Liberation Force, died in Birmingham in June in what was described as “mysterious circumstances” which some believe could be linked to poisoning .
Paramjit Singh Panjwar, designated a terrorist by India, was shot dead in May in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Mr. Singh of the World Sikh Organization said Mr. Nijjar had been the target of threats and that he had warned members of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as early as last summer that there was likely a assassination plot against Sikh leader.
A similar referendum was held last year in the city of Brampton, Ontario, home to about 160,000 Sikhs.
The results of the vote have not yet been released, but he said the turnout – estimated at 100,000 people – had angered the Indian government.
“This has been devastating to the Indian narrative that (Khalistan) is a fringe or extremist movement,” he said.
Following the referendum, India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned of a “sharp increase in incidents of hate crimes, sectarian violence and anti-India activities in Canada”, although it made no reference to no specific incident or mention of the referendum.
There are different accounts of the Khalistan movement in India, as well as the deaths of its followers like Mr. Nijjar.
Some Indian commentators have pointed to internal rivalries among Sikh organizations in Canada as the reason for Mr. Nijjar’s death.
They also accused Khalistan supporters in Canada of vandalizing Hindu temples with “anti-India” graffiti and attacking the offices of the Indian High Commission in Ottawa during a protest in March.
But Sikhs and some national security experts in Canada have accused the Indian government of spreading disinformation through its media to malign the Sikh community and supporters of a separate state of Khalistan. India has denied this.
Canada’s national security adviser to the prime minister has previously accused India of being one of the main sources of foreign interference in Canada.
India, for its part, has argued that the rise of the Sikh separatist movement in Canada has interfered in India’s internal affairs.
The two countries have long-standing diplomatic and trade relations, although relations have been strained in recent months.
Canada announced it had suspended negotiations on a historic free trade agreement with India in September, and during a G20 meeting between the two countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused Canada of not not doing enough to quell “anti-Indian” sentiments on Canadian soil.
Balpreet Singh said he believed Canada needed to take a tougher stance against foreign interference from India, arguing that it primarily targeted the Sikh community.
But he added that Canada has also provided a venue where many Sikh supporters of the Khalistani movement can speak openly, and that the community remains defiant over Mr. Nijjar’s death.
“No one tells us we can’t talk about Khalistan here,” he said. “If you try to tell us we can’t talk about our sovereignty, we will do just the opposite.”
